


Tell me another beautiful lie. Tell me everything I want to hear

by angel_deux



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, canon typical hand injuries specifically, kind of a Salt AU kind of a Mr and Mrs Smith AU kind of neither
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-06
Updated: 2019-12-06
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:42:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21697132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angel_deux/pseuds/angel_deux
Summary: Brienne Tarth has been a spy for too long to fall for the obvious machinations of her hot new neighbor, Jaime. She's not sure who he works for or why they want her watched, but clearly he works for SOMEONE. Why else would he be so relentless in trying to befriend her?
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 89
Kudos: 536





	Tell me another beautiful lie. Tell me everything I want to hear

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by a tumblr mashup prompt and then taken to new heights by me for some reason! This was supposed to be kind of silly and funny but it ended up long and angsty instead. And as always I have NO idea what it even is.

Being a spy—or “espionage agent”, as Catelyn insists they call themselves—involves a certain amount of paranoia. The world of private espionage is a tricky one to navigate, because there really aren’t any _rules_. Government agencies probably have _regulations_ and things that are considered ‘way over the line’, but private espionage is different. Everyone does whatever they think they can get away with to give themselves an edge over the competition. There are few things that are considered taboo: permanent disfigurement, rape, going after families, long term deception. The rival agencies tend to stay away from that sort of thing for the sake of their reputations. But even those aren’t hard-and-fast _rules_. They’re sort of gentlemen’s agreements, and they can be broken. Brienne started working for Catelyn Stark when she was in her early twenties, and she hasn’t had a reason to regret it yet, but it _has_ made her wary.

There are people that she knows she can trust. She trusts everyone in Catelyn’s family. Catelyn’s son Robb was her partner throughout her late twenties, until he retired to get married and raise his son. Podrick, who works in tech, she once saved from a rival agency, and he has remained her loyal friend and follower ever since. And Catelyn, of course, she trusts more than any of them. She’s a boss and a big sister and a mother all in one, and Brienne has never had a better friend.

It’s just everyone _outside_ the agency she doesn’t trust.

* * *

Like her neighbor.

Brienne’s been made before. She’s been compromised before. It _happens_ , with things like facial recognition software and the persistent presence of cameras. She always wears a disguise in the field so that she can try and live a normal life outside her job, but sometimes their rivals get lucky. It hasn’t ever been _dangerous_ , at least not yet, and usually it just means that she has to be relocated and assigned a new identity, and maybe she’ll stay out of the field for a little bit until the leak is plugged. She’s been Brienne Flowers for a while now. She’s lived at the same apartment for a while now. She hasn’t been made in _years._

All of which is to explain why she isn’t even so alarmed when she realizes that her new neighbor is from a rival spy agency. It’s more just vague annoyance followed by amusement when he’s not even a very _good_ one. He’s the most obvious espionage agent she’s ever met.

Brienne is a good spy. She’s a good spy despite her height and despite the fact that she stands out in a crowd. She’s good at disguising herself in elaborate costumes and makeup and masks, and she somehow manages to blend in despite all the things that set her apart. She has survived this long in this field without death or major injury by being perceptive and always aware of her surroundings, which means knowing exactly how people are going to act before they do it.

New Neighbor Jaime falls so far outside the mold he should be in that it’s _stunning_. Insanely hot guy a bit older than her who clearly spends most of his time working out? It’s not like _everyone_ has to fit into a box, but usually people at least fall into several expected ones, but New Neighbor Jaime doesn’t. He falls more and more outside any recognizable mold the more she talks to him. He should at least be _trying_ to blend in, but instead he seems to want to stand out. Everything he does is asking for her attention.

Honestly, the fact that he seems to expect her to believe it is kind of insulting _._

* * *

A good spy knows her strengths, which means she also knows her weaknesses. When she was younger, Brienne was convinced she was comprised entirely of weaknesses. She was ugly and mannish and still somehow too soft. Every harsh word from every person cut straight through her defenses. She cried at everything. She always hurt herself by fawning over only the prettiest boys, even though she knew they’d never like her back, and still somehow managed to be surprised and heartbroken when they started dating the prettiest girls and never looked twice at her.

But she’s been doing the spy thing for more than a few years now, and she’s much more confident than she used to be. She still has a weakness for pretty men, and New Neighbor Jaime is definitely that. But she isn’t cowed by them anymore, and she doesn’t _fall_ the way she used to. She knows men like New Neighbor Jaime. They sneer and laugh at her and call her names, even well into her thirties, but their words don’t stick the way they used to. Words are wind, and Brienne Tarth has saved countless lives due to her work with Catelyn Stark. Her large body and her mannish arms have stopped massive attacks on a global scale. Those small, pretty men have their pretty faces, and they have their cruelty, but she has _pride_ , now, and that is worth so much more.

New Neighbor Jaime moves into the vacant apartment directly next to hers. They share a wall, though her apartment has been soundproofed, so she doesn’t even realize anyone has moved in until she bumps into him in the elevator on her way back from a run. She’s wearing only a sports bra and leggings, and her face is probably blotchy and red from the exercise, and he gapes at her.

“Gods, you’re even taller than me,” he says. She meets his eyes. He isn’t sneering, but there’s a twist to his sharp smile that she doesn’t trust.

“Maybe you’re just not very tall,” she says, putting her earbuds back in. She doesn’t even turn on any music, and she thinks New Neighbor Jaime can tell, because he smiles to himself and looks away.

Three days later, he catches her as she’s leaving her apartment and he's heading into his.

“Hey,” he says. “I think we started off on the wrong foot.”

“Did we?” she asks. He’s grinning at her already, and her stomach lurches unpleasantly the way it always does when pretty men smile at her. His hair is long and golden, and he has the perfect amount of stubble. Not too sparse. Not long enough to obscure a truly perfect jawline. Where was this guy made? In some kind of lab?

“I didn’t mean to…it just seemed like I upset you.”

She looks at him curiously. Her earbuds are already half raised to her ears.

“You didn’t upset me,” she says. The very idea is ludicrous. What would she be upset about? He called her tall. She _is_ tall.

“Oh,” he says. “I’m Jaime. Hill.”

She continues to stare at him. He doesn’t back down. He’s still smiling. There’s a crack in her armor. Just a bit. What does he want? Why is he smiling at her like that?

“Brienne,” she says gruffly, and she puts her earbuds in, and she walks down the hall to the elevator. Every stride takes her further from him. _What does he want_? She keeps asking herself the same question, feeling off-balanced

It’s not until the third run-in that it clicks. This time, he knocks on her door, and when she opens it, he looks fresh from the shower. His hair is wet and starting to curl as it dries. His shirt is slightly damp. His smile is sheepish.

“Hey, Brienne,” he says, saying her name pointedly, as if to show her that he’s remembered it. Brienne’s entire job is memorizing: blueprints, mission parameters, names and faces. Color her unimpressed. “This is kind of a longshot, but would you have any idea how to fix a dishwasher?”

“What?” she asks. “What’s wrong with it?”

“It’s not working,” he answers, and she sighs.

It doesn’t click when she’s actually in his apartment, though it should. It’s sparse and poorly decorated, but that could just be down to his being a single man in his mid to late thirties. Divorced, probably, she thinks. She has trouble imagining him as being single for very long. He’s appealing in a way that’s dangerous and nonthreatening at the same time, somehow, especially with this whole helpless damsel act about the dishwasher.

Luckily for him, he’s got the same model that’s in her kitchen, and she knows exactly what the problem is. She shows him how to do everything, so he can fix it himself next time, and he watches her with a carefulness that she appreciates, because it means he’s actually listening.

He thanks her when she’s done, following her to his door to say goodbye, and he smiles at her so broadly when she leaves that she has the idle thought: how is he _real_?

She’s safely back in her own place, her door locked and her security system active, and she realizes: oh.

He’s not real at all, is he?

* * *

It becomes so _obvious_ , after that, once she knows. He always greets her happily when he sees her in the hall. He holds the elevator doors open for her, which literally no one else in their apartment complex ever does. They tend to get home around the same time when she’s working regular hours at the front office and not on a mission, so they ride the elevator together and talk about whatever topic Jaime introduces until they reach their apartments and say goodbye. One day, running a bit late, she spots him waiting outside on the sidewalk, and she lurks in a nearby alleyway for a full five minutes before he looks dejected and heads back inside.

“He’s memorized my schedule,” she tells Podrick later, over the phone.

“How long has he been living there?”

“Six weeks.”

“And have you two been talking often?”

“I suppose. In the elevator, mostly.”

“In the afternoons?”

“Yeah? Why?”

“Is there any chance he just wanted to walk in with you and talk to you? Like, as a normal person?”

“Pod,” Brienne scoffs. “Come on.”

She hangs up the phone after Podrick promises to look into him further, and Jaime knocks on her door _again_ that night and asks if she wouldn’t mind him joining her on her morning runs.

“I get bored running by myself,” he says, with a winning smile. “And I like spending time with you.”

“All right,” she says. She smiles back. She doesn’t trust him, and she doesn’t believe him, but she knows she could take him in a fight, and she knows not to let her guard down. She might as well see where this goes.

* * *

“He’s just so obvious about it,” she says to Catelyn a few weeks later, when things have progressed to actual _friendship_ and she and Pod are still no closer to unraveling who he might be working for. She had wanted more proof before she went to her boss, but Pod's been busy with _actual mission stuff_ , so she figured she would at least let Catelyn know why she’s been using so much of his time. Catelyn shrugs one shoulder and flips through the pictures Brienne sent Podrick earlier in the week. She’d taken them with her smart glasses, capturing Jaime’s upturned smile as he complimented her on how she looked in them.

“How long has this been going on?” Catelyn asks.

“Weeks,” Brienne says. “We go for runs together. We get pizza on weekends. We’re starting a new television show.”

“And you say he has no idea that you’re on to him?”

“I’ve given him no indication.”

“What about the apartment?”

“Pod’s got it bugged, but he says Jaime never talks to anyone. He must be checking in by text.”

“And Pod found nothing?”

“No. His phone’s encrypted. Another red flag. I told him to keep looking. Pod’s better than anybody at unraveling those threads.”

“Mm,” Catelyn replies. She looks at Brienne again, tilting her head to one side. “I’ll grant you it’s suspicious.”

“Yes,” Brienne says. _Thank you_ , she screams internally. She’s sick of Pod’s endless kindness and optimism, suggesting that maybe Jaime just _likes_ her.

“Have you felt threatened? Compromised?”

“No.”

“Do you want us to relocate you?”

“No. But if he’s been sent to spy on me…”

“Obviously if you’re uncomfortable with this, you can say no,” Catelyn says. “But for now…I’d suggest that you play along.”

Brienne sighs.

“Play along?” she asks.

“You’re a spy, aren’t you?” Catelyn points out, amused by Brienne’s incredulity. “Deceive him.”

* * *

And, well. Actually, it’s kind of fun. To play with Jaime at this game. Brienne _is_ a spy, and she’s a very good one, so she has no problem pretending to be amused or pretending to get closer.

It helps that Jaime is, actually, kind of great. Considering they’re both spies in the same line of work, maybe it’s not such a surprise that they get along. Or maybe he’s just pretending to like what she likes. He _seems_ to genuinely enjoy the time they spend together, but then again, she’s sure _she_ doesn’t seem suspicious at all. It’s his job. Of course he’s good at it.

Catelyn checks in with her constantly. _Are you doing okay? Is it too much? Can you handle it_? Pod keeps reassuring her that he’s finding nothing wrong with Jaime’s history. He’s been hacking into all their competitors’ databases, trying to figure out which agency Jaime belongs to. Obviously Jaime Hill can’t be his real name, but Pod’s facial recognition software was stolen from his last job at Lanniscorp, and it’s the _absolute_ cutting edge. If Jaime works for any of their main adversaries, Pod will find him.

The truth is that as far as missions go, enduring Jaime’s attempted spycraft is a downright pleasant one. When she leaves for a few days on a mission at the Wall and comes back with a black eye that she forgets to hide, he reacts as if _she_ has punched _him_ , and he insists on holding a bag of frozen peas to her face like they’re in some kind of action movie interlude scene.

“Who did this?” he asks, his voice quite artfully wrecked, and she laughs and says that she got hit while sparring with a friend. Jaime seems unconvinced, and he keeps looking at her searchingly, like she’s trying to hide something. It makes her feel just…well. Slightly tender towards him.

“Jaime,” she says. “I’m fine,” and then he kisses her.

It’s soft, the kiss. Gentle. Like he thinks he’ll hurt her swollen eye by kissing her lips with too much force. She’s been expecting this for weeks now, because he started flirting quickly and never quite let up. She knows how stuff like this works. They wouldn’t send a beautiful man in to befriend the ugly spy if they weren’t planning to use him as a honeytrap. Why else would they waste someone as good as Jaime on a mission like this? They know her fondness for pretty men, or maybe they just _inferred_ it. Brienne, unlike Jaime Hill’s alias, fits neatly into several expected boxes. They wouldn’t need to know much about her at all to figure out what she’d fall for.

She sighs as Jaime's mouth leaves hers. She closes her eyes. She can pretend. She’s good at pretending.

“Are you still okay with this?” Catelyn will ask her.

“Yes,” Brienne will say.

“Jaime,” she says now, putting her hand out and laying her palm flat against his chest. He allows himself to be pushed back.

“I’m sorry,” he says. He has this horrified look, this assumption of rejection that’s frankly appalling. How is he this good?

“Don’t,” she says. “It’s all right. I just…”

_I just don’t want to kiss you. I just don’t want to fuck you._

_No_ , she realizes. _I want it to be real. That’s the problem._

“I just need,” she says slowly. “Some time.”

Jaime is already nodding.

“Of course,” he says. “I shouldn’t have…I just…”

“Jaime,” she says gently. She wants to spit in his face. How dare he be so good at this? “It’s okay. I promise.”

“Okay,” he says. His smile is a fragile, nervous thing. “I know I can be…”

“Jaime, it’s fine.”

“Too much,” he finishes quietly, and she shakes her head.

“You’re not,” she says.

* * *

“He’s a fucking genius,” she crows later to Catelyn.

“It was sweet,” Pod agrees with a soft smile. Brienne shakes her head.

“Sweet,” she scoffs. “It was diabolical. He knew exactly how to play it. He made himself look…it was remarkable. This thing he did with his eyes. Making them soft somehow.”

“He must know that vulnerability in men is your weakness,” Catelyn says.

“It is _not_ my weakness,” Brienne seethes. Catelyn quirks an eyebrow but blessedly doesn’t say anything.

“I need you to be sure you’re still on board,” she says instead. She’s very steady, and she doesn’t say the obvious: _we don’t usually use you as a honeytrap_. _This isn’t usually what you do._

And, well. That’s true. Brienne isn’t usually the person they send in to do the seducing, for obvious reasons. That’s for women like Margaery Tyrell, who looks good in any costume they give her and who would probably have been an Oscar winning actress in any other universe. But Brienne is long past the time when she equated virginity with virtue, and she’s been through two long-term relationships that brought her almost no real satisfaction but at least gave her some experience, so fine. If “Jaime Hill” wants to think he’s seducing her, she won’t stop him. If it gets her closer to figuring out who he really is…

* * *

Of course, it doesn’t, and instead what happens is that she falls utterly in love with him.

 _It’s not real_ , she tells herself when she knocks on his door and sees his anxious expression when he opens it.

 _It’s not real_ , she tells herself when she kisses him.

When his fingers are stroking her. When his mouth is on her. When he is inside her. It’s not real then, either.

When he kisses her awake after they’ve both slept for a few hours and tells her that he’s been trying to work up the courage for weeks, _that_ certainly isn’t real.

If it was real, Brienne would tell him he's absurd. She would point out her awkward frame and her unfortunate face and how it compares so unfavorably with his. She would tell him that she’s never been unaware of it. He doesn’t need to lie. He doesn’t need to make her feel better.

If it was real, she probably would have woken in the night, assumed he made some mistake, and crept out. She would have avoided him as best as she could for a few days, to let him come to his senses.

But it’s not real, so she pulls him closer and kisses him again.

It’s not real, so they go to the movies together and out to dinner together and they hold hands in public, and Brienne pretends not to notice the way people stare at them. She does so much pretending that it must be obvious to him that she’s doing it. He can’t possibly believe her to be this oblivious. Does he think she’s an idiot?

That’s the only explanation, really, and maybe it should make her hate him. But she’s been a spy too long to take it personally. Men underestimate her. It’s what they do. Either they think her weaker than she looks or they think her dumber than she looks, and either way that’s how she wins. If Jaime Hill wants to think she’s too stupid to know that a man like him would never be interested in a woman like her, then he’s not as good a spy as her, and that’s for the best.

It should make her resent him. It doesn’t. She admires him, actually. His skill at pretending. Sometimes she gets caught up in it. Sometimes, even after they’ve been “dating” for a month, she’ll have to roll out of bed in the middle of the night and splash her face with cold water and stare at her reflection in the mirror and whisper “it isn’t real” to herself. He’s too good at it. He makes her feel wanted. He makes her feel valued. He’s so good at what they both are doing, and she admires him for that in a way that would be easier if she could be professionally detached from it.

And sometimes…she’s supposed to be smarter than this, but sometimes she thinks he might admire her, too. Sometimes she catches him looking at her when he thinks she’s focusing on something else, and she can see the way his eyes move over her. He always seems ready for her. He always seems to want her. At first she assumed he was taking a pill or something, the way most male agents do when they have to do some honeytrapping, but…

Well, maybe he’s just a very good spy, or maybe he _does_ like her. Brienne has always thought that she would have better luck with men if they would only take some time to get to know her rather than being turned away by her looks, and maybe that's exactly what happened. Maybe he had gotten to know her, and maybe he likes her despite himself, just as she likes him.

It’s easier to pretend that way. It’s also more dangerous.

“Are you still okay?” Catelyn asks her often.

“Yes,” Brienne always says.

* * *

He’s in her bed for the first time. They usually stay at his, but she wanted to test him. He’s asleep, curled up in front of her. His back against her chest. He likes to be held, she knows. She wonders if that’s real, or if it was in her file that she likes to feel like she’s protecting the people she loves. She presses a kiss to the soft patch of skin behind his ear, near his neck, and he shivers happily in his sleep and shifts closer. She has noticed how affectionate he is. Is _that_ real? Even in sleep, he chases it. Then again, a spy’s life can be a lonely one. Maybe he was as starved for human touch as she was.

He laughs easily with her. He keeps up with their conversation and their banter. It hasn’t ever been just sex with them.

Is he the best spy in the world? Or is he the worst? She can’t tell.

 _Do you love me too_? She wants to ask. _Or are you just stronger than me_?

He stirs, and she closes her eyes. She pretends to sleep. She hears him shifting in the bed, and his hand strokes along her arm as he lifts it gently so he can sneak out without waking her. She waits. Will he search the apartment now? He gets to his feet. She hears him go into the bathroom. When he returns to the bed, only a minute or so has passed. Not nearly long enough. He snuggles up beside her, and he sighs. Warm and content. 

* * *

Then it has been two months, and Brienne is starting to feel the strain. Jaime laments her frequent business trips and texts her when she’s on missions, so she takes to leaving her phone behind with Podrick when she goes, not wanting Jaime to be able to track her, if that’s his goal. She deflects his probing attempts to make things more serious between them. She hopes she comes off as an emotionally distant, aloof businesswoman and not like someone who suspects. Jaime always takes the deflections in stride, switching conversational tactics. As the time passes, he starts to look vaguely anxious about it, every time it happens. _Cracks_ , she thinks, with some pleasure.

There are times she thinks of revealing everything to him. Maybe he would be glad to talk openly. Maybe he would be glad if he no longer had to pretend to love her. Either way, at least she would know; not knowing his goal is the most painful part. But she never quite works up the courage. It’s her ego, she thinks. She wants to prove that she’s the better spy. She doesn’t want to be the one to back down.

It’s not because she doesn’t want to lose him.

Pod calls her at the start of the third month.

“I found something,” he says. His voice is heavy.

* * *

Brienne tries to sneak out early that morning, but Jaime wakes and rolls over to look at her. Sleepy and content, stretching like a cat.

“Where are you going?” he asks.

“The office,” she says. She presses a kiss to his cheek before she ducks away, evading when he tries to capture her lips. He sighs happily and leans back, allowing the sheet to drop lower on his stomach in a way that would be tempting on any other day. His expression is welcoming, wanting, but that anxiety that hovers around him sometimes deepens when she pretends not to look at him, looking down at her phone instead.

“Is everything all right?” he asks. _He knows your weakness_ , Catelyn had said, and she was right: Jaime’s voice is vulnerable. Brienne’s heart trembles. _It isn’t real_ , she reminds herself, harshly.

“Of course,” she says. She forces herself to meet his eyes and smile at him. Like she’s just Brienne Flowers. The girlfriend who loves him. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

* * *

“Which agency does he work for?” she asks when she enters Pod’s office. He’s alone, which she’s grateful for. Catelyn is visiting Robb and Jeyne and the baby. Brienne doesn’t want her here for this. She’ll have to give the report eventually, but Catelyn has always been so good at reading Brienne. She’ll see the hurt.

“None of them,” Pod says, but he doesn’t look happy. “I did find…some discrepancies.”

“Discrepancies,” Brienne says.

“He’s been receiving monthly payments from a shell company.”

“Monthly payments? How big?”

“Big enough to not need that job at the gym,” Pod admits quietly. “ _And_ , speaking of the gym: he’s on their books as working a lot more hours than he actually does. I only started looking into it when you mentioned that weekend trip you took. The gym records had him working a full day Saturday. So I started digging. The gym is owned by a guy named Bronn Blackwater. Bronn has been receiving a smaller stipend each month from a _different_ company, this one with ties to Impera, some Westerlands-based firm. That trail could lead anywhere. I can assign someone to it, but it might take a while. Lanniscorp does their digital security.”

“So Bronn’s being paid to pretend to employ Jaime, and Jaime’s being paid to spy on me, but he’s not an agent,” Brienne says. She thinks of the immediate open flirtiness. The way everything about him is too beautiful to be real. The way he's so good at pretending to want her. She’s going to be sick. “He’s a gods damned prostitute.”

“Yeah,” Pod says weakly. “I think…that’s the only thing that makes sense.”

Brienne does head to the bathroom, then, and she _does_ throw up. It was one thing when she thought he was a ruthless spy who was trying to get her to fall in love with him. It was a _game._ They were on equal footing. But if he’s a prostitute…

Gods. What if he’s been exploited? What if he’s being blackmailed? What if he’s doing what he has to do to survive, and she’s been taking advantage? She knows the stats on prostitution in their line of work. It’s usually the women who are in trouble, but it’s not unheard of for men, even older men.

She goes back to Pod’s office to find him waiting with a pack of gum and a sympathetic smile. She takes several pieces and chews them with a jaw-wrenching vigor that probably makes her look like a maniac.

“We need to get him out of there,” she says.

“We can’t,” Pod says. “Catelyn says…”

“You already told her?”

“She needed to know.”

Brienne presses her hands to her face. She remembers the way Jaime was so languid and soft this morning. She remembers the anxiety behind his eyes. Did he think he was failing? Had he worried about what would happen if he did? Gods, she feels…

“If he’s being exploited or set up…”

“We will monitor him,” Pod says gently. “We will see who removes him from the field. All right? And then, if we think he’s there unwillingly, we’ll send someone in to get him. It’ll run through trafficking. Maybe we can find out what they had on him, and we can help him out or flip him, whatever seems best. But you need to get out of there.”

Brienne nods. She has a mission coming up in a few days anyway. She’ll break it off with Jaime and then leave, and he’ll have a whole two weeks to clear out. She’ll go back to her apartment to pack up what’s left, and she’ll be relocated. She’ll never have to see him again.

 _None of it was real_ , she reminds herself when she finds herself thinking that she can’t do it. _None of it was real, not even a little. He was just very good at pretending_.

* * *

She returns home so drained that she turns off her phone and goes to sleep. She hears Jaime knock on her door once, but she doesn’t answer it. She pulls her pillow closer and doesn’t think about holding him. She doesn’t think about the warmth of his skin against her chest or the way his eyes always light up when he sees her. She doesn’t think about it because it wasn’t real, and there is nothing to be gained by wishing it was.

* * *

In the morning, she prepares herself with a stiff cup of coffee. Catelyn has texted her with her sympathies and instructions for where she should go after breaking things off with Jaime. She finds she wants to cry, but she stops herself. _You are the only one who will be hurt by this_ , she says. _Your tears serve no one but yourself. He’s a hired worker. Perhaps he’s been exploited, or perhaps he’s a willing participant, but either way, none of it has been real for him, and you will not be doing any good by acting like it was._

She knocks on his door. Her heart is pounding. She’s never broken up with anyone before. Even if it isn’t real, she knows she has to make it _look_ real. She can’t let his employers know that she knows the truth. For her sake as much as for his.

He opens the door, and his eyes brighten the same as they always do when he sees her. She thought it would be more difficult to meet them, but it isn’t. They’re both professionals, whatever else there is. It’s good to be reminded just how well he has played his part. It isn’t his fault she fell for it.

“We need to talk,” she says, briskly, and she sees that anxiety back behind his eyes. He hovers in the doorway he like doesn’t want to let her in, but he moves aside, and she enters.

She can do this. She turns to face him. He doesn’t approach her or kiss her. He knows what’s coming. He shuts his door and stands there, waiting, his arms folded across his chest.

“Brienne,” he says, hesitantly. “I’m not sure if…”

“I want to keep this as simple and as painless as possible,” she says. His breath hitches a little bit. He looks away from her, and he scrubs a hand through his hair.

“I don’t know if you can do that,” he says, and his smile in her direction is grim. The anxiety in his eyes has gone away, replaced with a much more simple resignation.

“It just isn’t working for me,” she says. “I’m sorry.”

He barks out a laugh, and now he looks incredulous.

“Gods,” he says. “Is that _it_?”

“What else do you want me to say?”

“I don’t know. An explanation? Some excuse? At least tell me what I _did_.”

“You didn’t do anything,” she says. She knows what it feels like to fail a mission, and she finds that she doesn’t want him to think he did anything wrong. “I just…” _I know who you are_. It would be so easy to say. It would break every rule. It would compromise her for sure. “You were wonderful,” she says instead. “I’m just not…I’m not…” She sighs. She wishes she had thought of a plain way to do this. Thought out her words ahead of time. She should have known herself enough to know that she would feel too much empathy even though she knows the truth. “I just don’t care for you like I thought I did,” she manages to say. Jaime’s staring at her as if she has slapped him. “I’m sorry,” she says again, and she heads for the door.

“Wait, Brienne. I…”

“Jaime, please,” she says, and he subsides behind her. He doesn’t try to say anything else.

* * *

Back in her apartment, she breathes steadily and surely. She closes her eyes. She does not think about the look on his face. She does not think about how afraid he had looked. She can’t help him now. Pod will handle the rest. She grabs her bags and heads back out the door. Jaime’s apartment door is still closed, and she makes her way to the elevator before he thinks to try to follow her. He’s persistent, and he’s good at his job. He won’t take a single rejection as the end. Luckily, his strategy seems to be to give her some time; his door stays closed.

When she's on the ground floor, she feels lighter than she has in months. She had fallen in love with him like a fool. Jaime Hill, whoever he truly was. He had won. But that love had never been _easy_ , and it had never felt right, because she had known it was a mistake all along. It's still painful. She will need time to recover. But it’s a relief to know it’s over, all the same. Jaime Hill may have won, but his employers didn’t get whatever they ultimately wanted from her, and she should count that as a success. Not that it’s much salve to a broken heart, but it’s something.

* * *

The mission in Dorne goes off without any problems, and Brienne returns to the apartment feeling refreshed. Pod had tracked Jaime’s whereabouts, as promised, and he kept her updated during her downtime. Jaime apparently stayed in his apartment for nearly a week before heading to the gym where he was employed. Outside, he was picked up in an SUV by three men he appeared to know. Pod had identified them as being from The Company.

That was the most unsettling thing so far. It made Brienne grateful she had left when she did. The Company’s agents, known as _The Companions_ , were a particularly ruthless bunch. It was an odd choice for them to hire a prostitute to seduce a Winterfell agent, but only because they were usually a lot more blunt and a lot more pain-focused. They also tended towards mercenary work. They must have been hired by _another_ agency, which was in itself odd. Why had Brienne been worth the fuss? 

“Did he seem okay?” she had asked Pod. Jaime Hill had broken her heart, but that didn’t mean she wanted him to suffer.

“He was laughing and joking with them,” Pod confirmed. “And two days later, the money was deposited in his account same as last month.”

“Good,” Brienne had said. “I assume you tracked the SUV anyway.”

“Of course I did,” Pod had said, plainly insulted that she would even ask.

Brienne had hummed noncommittally, and she had not thought about Jaime for the rest of the trip. She had not missed him when she was falling asleep, and she had not missed him when she was awake. What was there to miss? He was a false companion, paid for by _The_ Companions. He wasn’t even some poor, exploited prostitute like she’d feared. He was just a man doing a job he was paid to do. As a woman being paid to deceive and lie, even if it was for the greater good with Catelyn’s organization, she could hardly fault him for his choices, and she didn’t blame him. Their time together had been lovely for her, and she had fallen too hard, and that was all.

She didn’t think about it any further.

She didn’t think about him on the plane back home.

She didn’t think about the way he had looked at her in horror when he saw the black eye she came home with, that first time he kissed her. She didn’t think about how happy he used to look when she returned from her “business trips”.

 _He’s relieved he no longer has to pretend to want you_ , she told herself, and she shut up the part of her brain that _did_ want to think about him and _did_ want to miss him. That part of her brain was a foolish little girl, and Brienne shouldn’t encourage her.

* * *

Her apartment had mostly been emptied by a cleaning crew that will help her move her stuff into whatever new apartment in whatever new city Catelyn finds for her, but Brienne is headed back for her personal possessions, all tucked away in her safe. Pod has been watching the apartment closely, and so there's no reason for her to worry. Her security system was re-set by the movers, and there have been no alarms, and Pod hasn’t seen anything suspicious.

So whoever the man in her apartment is, the first thing she knows about him is that he’s _good._

She opens the door, and she finds a very short man sitting on the windowseat in which her safe had been hidden. Her possessions are spread around him on the floor, and the safe door is hanging open. She freezes in the doorway, but he hops down from his spot and holds out his hand as if to greet her with a proper handshake, except he’s holding a gun. He's handsome, with unruly brown-blonde hair and a full beard. He has plainly seen better days, but he’s dressed in a well-pressed suit and wears a pleasant enough smile, even if it _is_ pulling tiredly at the corners.

“Miss Tarth,” he says.

“Flowers,” she corrects. The man smiles indulgently.

“Tarth,” he counters. “Shut the door. You may be able to outrun a dwarf, but my men are outside waiting for you to emerge, and I only hire the best. They will take you in. In broad daylight, no less. I’m rich enough to cover it all up, even from your employers, as you can no doubt tell from my presence here.”

Brienne’s teeth are grinding together, but she shuts her door. She’s not particularly worried yet, though she knows she should be. He evaded _Pod_ , and Pod's one of the best in the field.

“What are you doing in my apartment?” she asks.

“Forgive me for my rudeness, but considering why I’m here, I’ll be asking the questions.”

He reaches behind him, to the windowseat, and picks up a wooden box that had been sitting beside him when she entered. He has to put the gun down to pick it up with both hands, and he carries it over to her, looking up at her with an impassive expression. He lifts the lid.

A hand is inside. Rotten, severed, the edges jagged and unclean. It rests on an ivory silk cushion, like some kind of bizarre joke. The stench is overpowering immediately, and Brienne gags and starts to lurch away before she spots the polaroid that’s taped to the inside lid of the box.

It’s Jaime. Jaime huddled on a dirty concrete floor. His chin is being jerked up sharply by fingers pressing bruises into his skin. His eyes are glazed and his mouth a sneer. His arm is wrapped in dirty, bloody gauze, the hand clearly gone.

Brienne forgets everything she has ever known, and she grabs the man by the lapels of his very nice suit jacket. He drops the box in his shock, and the hand goes skittering across the floor. She picks him up, and she slams him hard against the wall.

“What have you done to him?” she asks. The man squirms in her grasp, astonished and winded by the swiftness of her actions.

“Me?” he chokes out. “ _Me_? He’s my fucking brother!”

Brienne processes that. His eyes are red, as if he’s been weeping, and there’s an exhaustion and a grief behind them that she can believe. His hair is tousled in a way she thought artful but she can now see is from constantly running his hands through it. _Jaime used to do the same thing_ , she thinks, annoyingly. If she looks at this man critically, she can see a resemblance. She feels her arms weaken, and she sets him down gently, looking back at the floor where the box and the hand have dropped. She doesn’t want to touch it. She leaves it. She remembers when that hand had touched her for the first time, and the thousands of times that had followed. It wasn’t real, but _this_ is. Someone has tortured him. Someone is holding him.

“I take it you're not responsible for his disappearance, then,” Jaime’s brother says dryly. “Considering you don’t seem to know who I am.”

“I didn’t know he had a brother,” she says. “I didn’t know anything about him.”

“He talked an awful lot about _you_.”

Jaime’s brother is straightening out his suit with jerky, uncoordinated movements that show how nervous he is now that he understands what he’s up against. “He was quite taken with you. Whoever does your security deserves a raise, you know. You passed my background check, and my background checks are _very_ good. It was only once you’d given him the slip that I found discrepancies.” He looks her up and down. There’s disdain in his expression, but not as much as she would have expected. “Well, if you’re not a Companion, what are you? You’re coming from Dorne, so I’m guessing you’re not one of Ellaria’s. You don’t strike me as a Wildling. One of Cat’s wolves, then.”

Brienne gives nothing away, but Jaime’s brother smiles anyway. Sick and pleased with himself.

“Yes,” he says. “A wolf. That means Pod does your security. That explains it. I trained him myself when he worked for me at Lanniscorp. No need to look so blankly at me, my dear. If you’re not the one who took my brother, then we have nothing to fear from each other. I’m Tyrion. Tyrion Lannister.”

 _Lannister_. The name sends Brienne reeling again. Lannister.

“Jaime,” she starts. “He said his name was…”

“Hill. Yes, I know. When he wanted to disappear, I’m the one who helped him. Family politics. A dreadful business, and Jaime’s the only one of them that I care for, so it was the least I could do. He was going to tell you.”

“I thought,” she says weakly. “I thought he was a spy. I thought he was…I thought he was spying on me. Was he?”

Tyrion frowned at her and said, “my brother? A _spy_? Don’t be ridiculous. You may be able to stand there like a big, terrifying brick wall, showing no emotion, but my brother has never had the knack. No, Jaime’s all heart. That’s why I had to get him away from them. My father was running him into the ground. My sister, too. Jaime has always loved too fiercely, and my family soaked it up like greedy little sponges. Myself included, until I realized what it was doing to him. So I gave him a fake name. I got him an apartment. I gave him a second chance. It was only supposed to be temporary. Give him some time away to get his head back on straight. But he found _you_ , and then he didn’t want to leave.”

 _All heart_.

Brienne opens that door inside her. She allows those thoughts in.

His warm, happy sighs in his sleep. His soft touches. The way he looked at her just before he kissed her the first time. The way his eyes had that anxiety behind them, that fear. _I know I’m too much._ The way he liked to be held and protected, like someone who’d never had the privilege before. The way his face had cracked open when she told him it was over.

And now…

She looks back again at the hand on the ground.

“Pod said he was laughing with the men who took him,” she says. “That he was joking with them. We thought…”

“That’s Jaime,” Tyrion says helplessly. “He wouldn’t let them see he was afraid. He’s too much of a stubborn fool. I can’t blame Podrick for seeing it that way.”

“Podrick,” she gasps out. She pulls out her phone. “I had Podrick tailing him. I thought…” No, it’s too embarrassing. She has to say it anyway. “I thought he was an escort they’d hired to seduce me to get intel on me. I wanted to make sure he wasn’t being exploited.”

“Gods, I wish I could laugh at that,” Tyrion says miserably. “Remind me when we find him, and I’ll give it a go.”

“Podrick knows where he is,” Brienne insists, and finally Podrick picks up. “I need to know where Jaime Hill was taken,” she says. “I’m with his brother.”

“Uh,” Podrick says.

“Tyrion _Lannister_ ,” Brienne insists, and Podrick swears.

“Of course it’s Tyrion,” he says. “All right. Just a second. Sending you the address now.”

* * *

“He disappeared a week ago,” Tyrion says as they head to the elevator. “We got a call about it. My father dismissed it. He seemed to think it was Jaime staging his own kidnapping, looking for money. He wanted Jaime to come crawling back instead. He didn’t know I’d helped him disappear. I tried contacting Jaime, and got nothing in response. That’s when I started looking into you. Three days ago, we were sent another picture. This one of Jaime plainly in captivity. My sister and I urged my father to respond, but he didn’t. This morning, it was this, and my people finally spotted you at an airport in Dorne. I thought you were the connection. I should have been looking in other directions, just in case.”

“It might be connected,” Brienne says. “We don’t know why he was taken.”

“Of course we know why he was taken. For money,” Tyrion says. “Because they thought my father would do anything to get his heir back.”

“Or it’s because he got involved with me,” Brienne says. “And someone compromised me.” That’s why so few agents stay in the field once they get married. And why so few of them marry at all. It’s too dangerous.

“No,” Tyrion says. “It isn’t that. You can’t blame yourself.”

“Of course I can blame myself,” she says.

She remembers when she was a child. She and Galladon playing in the waves. She’d insisted on just a few minutes more. Galladon had wanted to head back in, but he’d agreed and indulged her, because he was her big brother, and because he loved her.

If she hadn’t been so selfish…

Galladon drowned, and Brienne was left behind, and everyone told her, for years and years, that she shouldn’t feel guilty. She had been a child. She hadn’t known. It was a freak thing.

It didn’t matter. It had been her fault. Galladon was dead because of her. She would never think anything else.

And now Jaime…

Even if he hadn’t been taken because of her. Even if Tyrion was right about that….if she had trusted him, she could have prepared him. She might have been with him. She might have been able to save him.

She won’t ever forgive herself for this, either.

* * *

It just doesn’t make sense, in her line of work, to trust anybody. Sometimes she thinks she would have these kinds of trust issues even if she’d chosen a different career path. It’s just safer to stay on edge. It’s safer to keep your options open and to keep people at a distance.

Lying in the backseat of a strange man's car, pretending to be tranquilized, with her hands cuffed together, takes a lot of trust.

She trusts in Podrick and Catelyn, who will have backup in place. She trusts in Tyrion’s love for his brother. She even trusts the greed of Bronn, who apparently works for Tyrion, and has been promised a hefty bonus for driving them to where Jaime is being kept. But that’s all she trusts. The rest is just blind hope.

 _It was real_ , she reminds herself when she starts to wonder what the fuck she’s thinking. _It was real, and you can still save him_.

Bronn drives them to the address Pod gave her. It’s a warehouse at the docks, because of course it is, because they always are. He gripes the entire way about what a stupid fucker Tyrion is for thinking this is a good plan, but Tyrion ignores him, and Brienne does too. _Jaime_ , she thinks. His name hurts to remember. His soft hair and the way it curled slightly as it dried. The way he murmured contentedly when she put her arm around him. His smile at her over a morning cup of coffee. _Jaime_.

* * *

Tyrion grandstands horribly. Brienne isn’t sure why she’s surprised, but she is. Bronn pulls into the parking lot, Tyrion gets out, and there is a line of Companions waiting for him outside the warehouse.

He’s smug about it in a way that would make Brienne hate him if she was meeting him under other circumstances. As it is, she grinds her teeth to hear him boast about _catching_ her.

The set-up for their slapped-together plan is fairly simple: Tyrion brags about catching a Stark agent. He offers to trade her for Jaime by reminding them all of his father’s reluctance to play along and implying that someone like Catelyn Stark will be more likely to bail her agent out of a crisis. When the trade is done and Jaime is safe, Brienne will hold her own for long enough for Catelyn and their people to come in and make the official rescue.

The Companion in charge is suspicious when Tyrion lays out the terms of the trade, but it adds up. The Lannister family is renowned for being savage enough to pull something like this, and it means The Companions might still get paid, so they’d be fools not to consider it. Tyrion is jocular but sharp enough to be loathing, and the leader, a man named Hoat, is plainly amused by his hatred. He turns and whispers something to one of his men, and the man heads back inside the warehouse. Bronn turns around in the front seat and winks at Brienne. She rolls her eyes and wishes they hadn’t duct taped her mouth so she could tell him to fuck off.

If The Companions were better at what they do, they would remark on the odd choice to cuff Brienne loosely, with her hands in front of her rather than behind her. But they don’t, too distracted by her height and her ugliness. Bronn holds her steady while she pretends to waver, pretending to fight the effects of the tranquilizers. Tyrion waves the tranq gun she gave him around in the air and declares its virtues to a chorus of laughter from the gathered men. There are six of them here, and one in the warehouse, fetching Jaime. She’s never fought seven at once before.

The door to the warehouse opens again, and Jaime stumbles out into the light. His maimed arm is in a sling held close to his chest, and he’s gagged with a dirty piece of cloth. They haven’t bothered tying him up at all, and it’s clear why as soon as they prod him forward. He’s weak, sick, his skin clammy and pale and his eyes dazed. From the rot of the hand it was obvious that they’d cut it off days ago, and now it’s equally obvious that they haven’t given him anything for the infection or the pain. Brienne’s stomach clenches. Her eyes burn. Jaime trips and nearly falls, but he’s held up roughly by one of the men, who yanks him forward and then shoves him to his knees in front of Tyrion. Tyrion’s strength wavers for the first time. Brienne is only looking at the back of his head, but she can tell. He’s furious about the way his big brother is being treated. Brienne is furious too.

“Boss,” Bronn prompts, after Tyrion and Jaime simply stare at one another for just a bit too long. Jaime’s gaze focuses past his brother, and his eyes lock on Brienne’s. Dread again, just like when she was at his apartment last. He’s trying to say something. He’s shaking his head.

“I know you don’t like it, Jaime, but it’s the only way,” Tyrion says, airy and dismissive. “Do you trust me?”

Jaime ceases his struggling, and he stares at Tyrion. He doesn’t nod. He doesn’t shake his head, either. Brienne watches the men behind them. Hoat is smiling. She doesn’t trust his smile. She makes a low sound in the back of her throat, calling Bronn’s attention, and she can sense him beside her, following her eyeline. Together, they take in the rest of it. All of the men are armed. Hoat is cruelly amused. Tyrion and Jaime are oblivious. Bronn sighs loudly. Performatively. He presses the key into her palm.

“I said it,” he says with exaggerated disdain. “Didn’t I, Tyrion? You ungrateful little shit. I said this was never going to work. These people are too _smart_ to do hostage trades.” He leaves Brienne standing where she was. He strides forward with what’s probably meant to be a swagger. Tyrion isn’t the only one who can grandstand. “They’ll just give you a couple of seconds of hope for the sake of entertainment, and then they’ll take us all in. I said it! You can ask him.” He grins at The Companions while Tyrion stands frozen, his hand still holding to the tranq gun. “But who listens to a washed-up old mercenary like me, anyway? Certainly not little rich boys running away from their daddies.”

He laughs, and The Companions laugh with him. That canned, forced kind of laughter that men like them do when they’re waiting for a signal from their leader. Hoat seems content to let it happen, and Brienne can’t tell if he’s just cruel enough to think it’s funny or too stupid to realize what’s happened.

“What exactly do you think you’re going to accomplish with…this?” Hoat asks.

“Me? Oh, nothing,” Bronn says, a cheeky grin on his face. “Her, though, I’d watch out for.”

He turns over his shoulder to look at her, and then makes a humming sound of exaggerated disappointment when she isn’t where he left her. “Oh, oops. Would you look at that?”

Brienne’s been a spy for long enough that she knows to take the good entrance lines where she can get them. She had crept along the side of the car already, uncuffing herself on the way and peeling the duct tape from her face. She had slid around behind The Companions while they were watching Bronn. She had taken the pistol from where one of them had left it on a crate, and she grabbed the knife that was beside it for good measure. Was it the knife they had used to take Jaime’s hand? She flipped it open when Bronn was speaking, and she crept up behind them.

Bronn timed his line perfectly. She was just reaching her position when he finished.

“I think you’re looking for me,” she says. Hoat spins around, pulling his weapon up, but Bronn has shot him in the back twice before he can. Brienne takes out the two men standing beside him, since they’re also holding guns and need to be taken down first. One man lurches for Tyrion, but Tyrion shoots him several times with the tranq gun, and the man falls to his knees.

There are three of them left. All of them are rushing for Brienne.

If they were better fighters, perhaps she would have a problem on her hands, but Brienne was made for this, and it’s almost easy. With the rage she feels, with the pain that started low in her stomach and hasn’t let up yet, it’s _easy_ to block their punches and swipe with the knife and drive her elbows into their guts, or her fist into their noses. She makes such quick work of them that the man Tyrion shot with the tranquilizer is still wavering on his knees when her three men are all unconscious. He falls fully at last with a satisfying thud, and then it’s silent. Bronn laughs, a barking sound that cuts through the shock from both Lannister brothers.

“Gods, you’re so fucking hot,” he says. Brienne quirks an eyebrow at him. _He_ , for some reason, is easy to believe.

“All right,” she says grimly. She tosses the knife and the gun aside, and she walks back towards them. “We need to get Jaime to the hospital. Now.”

Tyrion finally puts down the tranq gun, his hands shaking as he wraps his fingers around the dirty rag in Jaime’s mouth and pulls it down. He flings himself at Jaime afterward, holding him tight, ignoring Jaime’s sleepy sound of pain when he jostles the infected arm. Bronn hauls Tyrion away and towards the car, calling him a “little idiot” with a hint of real affection, and Brienne holds her hand out for Jaime. He hesitates, looking up at her, still on his knees.

“I don’t understand,” he says.

“I know,” she says. “But do you trust me?”

Jaime’s face crumbles only slightly. He nods. He gives her his left hand, and she pulls him to his feet.

* * *

Tyrion won’t let her leave the hospital, after. He says it’s for security reasons, but she knows better. And she’s almost glad for it. She’d wanted to run, but there was a bigger part of her that had wanted to stay.

Catelyn and Pod had met them at the hospital, both of them enduring Bronn’s dramatic re-enactment of Brienne’s fight with polite, irritated smiles. Brienne had realized halfway through the little performance that he was giving she and Tyrion some time to regroup as Jaime was loaded onto a stretcher and taken back into surgery, and she found herself liking the brash mercenary just a bit. Catelyn hugged her after, and she whispered into her ear that Brienne was a marvel, and a wonder, and also on an enforced holiday for the next few weeks at least. Pod didn’t hug her, but he did grin up at her, his face still round with youth and his eyes sparkling.

“I told you,” he said. “He just wanted to talk to you like a normal person.”

“You also told me he was a prostitute.”

“I said he _might_ be a prostitute.”

“See, it _is_ funny now,” Tyrion decided while Bronn laughed uproariously. “My brother’s basically a monk! A _prostitute_! Where in the seven hells did you get _that_ idea?”

Hours pass, and Brienne stays in the private waiting area that Tyrion secured for them by flashing around his Lanniscorp Head of Security badge and telling everyone exactly _who_ the one-handed man they have in their OR is. Brienne spends the time looking up Jaime Lannister on her phone, feeling like a fucking idiot. Tyrion tries to make her feel better by detailing the lengths he went to to ensure that no piece of Lanniscorp software would ever be able to match Jaime to his own photo, but it doesn’t work.

“My brother loved you, you know,” Tyrion says once, after about an hour has gone by without an update. Maybe he’s just feeling nervous about his brother’s condition and needs to lash out, or maybe he just feels like being cruel. She isn’t sure. Either way, the words sting. She doesn’t bother to look at him.

“I loved him too,” she says.

“Even though you thought he was a prostitute?” Tyrion asks wryly. She finally turns his head. He isn’t being cruel at all. He’s curious. Evaluating.

“Yes,” she says. “Even when I thought he was a _spy_.”

Tyrion nods, and he sits back in his chair.

“Well,” he replies. “You’ve certainly done enough to make up for breaking his heart.”

Brienne doesn’t respond to that. _He lost his hand_ , she doesn’t say. _He was tortured. Locked up for a week. And for what?_

The answer comes from Jaime himself, after he’s been out of surgery long enough for Tyrion to go in and speak to him. When Tyrion emerges, he’s pale and quiet, and he climbs back up into the chair beside Brienne.

“Are you all right?” she asks. She resists the urge to run to Jaime’s door herself. “Is he okay?”

“It was our father,” Tyrion replies. He looks up at her like he’s trying to ask her a question, but she doesn’t have whatever answer he’s looking for. “Our father paid them to find Jaime. To take him home against his will. Once they had him, they asked for more money, and my father wouldn’t pay it. Even knowing that _he_ was why they had him.” He takes a deep breath, and Brienne can’t resist. She reaches over and puts a soothing hand on his back. He seems so young, suddenly.

“I’m sorry,” she says. Tyrion closes his eyes, and he nods. A tear escapes his lashes, but not for long; he dashes it away with the back of his hand.

“I’m going to bury him,” he says. He gets up again, already pulling out his phone. Before he goes, he looks back at her. “Please keep my brother company, Agent Tarth. He was asking for you.”

Brienne nods. She’d figured, actually. She stands up. She doesn’t want to show her nerves, but she can’t help the hesitation. It’s automatic to hide her feelings now. It’s safer that way. But Jaime…

She lets the mask slip. She heads through the door.

Jaime is propped up in bed, his head back against the pillows.

His eyes lighten when he sees her.

“Brienne,” he says.

“Hi, Jaime,” she manages. She approaches the bed. He’s clearly still drugged up, but his eyes aren’t quite as glassy as she’d expected. She wishes that they were. She doesn’t want to have this conversation at all, but her guilt would be easier to approach if he were less sober.

“I thought I had dreamed you,” he says. “Fighting all those men. That was amazing. Tyrion said you were in on the whole thing. Gods, Brienne. I thought…”

“I know,” she says. His panic had been easy enough to read when he thought she had been taken by his brother. “I’m so sorry.”

“What for?” Jaime asks. She wipes away the tears that start to fall despite her best efforts at keeping them contained.

“I thought you were a spy,” she despairs. “Or a prostitute. Or something. I didn’t think…I didn’t know you really…”

“A prostitute?” he looks amused at the thought, which is at least something to be glad for, but…

“I didn’t think it was real, for you. I’m sorry. I would have been kinder to you about ending it if I had known.”

His face falls, his smile slipping slightly into a wry grin.

“But you still would have left,” he guesses.

“No!” she says. “No, not…well, maybe, but…I don’t get involved, Jaime. I can’t. It’s too dangerous. Clearly.”

She gestures to his arm, and he draws it closer to himself, protecting it, his gaze on her wary.

“This was my father’s fault,” he says. “They told me, before they cut it off.”

“Yes, but what if they didn’t know where to look until you got involved with me? Maybe they were tailing me and they saw you! Or maybe…”

“Brienne, I don’t understand,” he sighs, exhausted. “What are you talking about?”

“I work for…” she starts, hesitating. Well, Tyrion knows now, and he’ll tell Jaime no matter what she asks him to keep quiet about, so she may as well. “I work for an espionage agency,” she says quietly. “We…we send in agents to obtain information and…”

“A spy,” Jaime says flatly. He’s plainly suspicious, and she almost wants to laugh. It’s only fitting that _he_ doesn’t believe _her_ either.

“Yes,” she admits.

“I suppose it makes sense. You know how to fight. You’re built like that. You knew where to find me.”

“Yes,” she says again, because she doesn’t know what else to say.

“And you thought I was _also_ a spy.”

“Yes,” she says again.

“Is that the only reason you…?”

“Yes.” His face falls further, and she says, “I told you. It’s not safe for me to get close to people. There’s always a risk of them getting hurt, and I…if I didn’t think you were a spy, I wouldn’t have ever…”

“Oh,” he says, quiet. The painkillers make his dejection seem even worse, more exaggerated, uncontained the way it is.

“But I,” she can’t stop herself from saying. _What are you doing, you foolish girl?_ “That doesn’t mean I didn’t…it was real. For me. I thought I was making an enormous mistake. Falling for you.”

She reaches out and touches his arm. The maimed one. He releases it from where it’s been tucked against his chest, watching her carefully. She only holds it. Lets him see that she’s sincere.

“It _was_ real,” he says.

“I know that now,” she replies.

“But you’re still going to disappear,” he guesses. “Tyrion said your apartment was empty. There were people moving things out when I was taken. I kept hoping to see you again, just ask you…”

He keeps talking, rambling, slurring his words. He still allows her to hold his maimed arm in her hand. She brushes her thumb soothingly over his skin, wanting to help him somehow, even if it’s just to impart a little comfort, and he stops speaking, stunned, looking at her with wide eyes. Hopeful and yearning and wanting. She never thought anyone would look at her like this. Not for real.

“What do you want to do?” she asks him. She shouldn’t be entertaining this. She shouldn’t be thinking about this at all. “I’ll have to relocate. I’ll have to take a new name, and if you come with me, you will too. It will be dangerous. And you’ll be worried for me when I leave on missions.” She knows this because she knows _him_ , because every single impossible bit of him was real.

“I want to stay,” he says. “With you. Wherever you go.”

“Jaime, I spent _months_ lying to you.”

“I don’t care about that,” Jaime says, as if it’s inconsequential, and she thinks of his cold, cruel family, and how maybe they made him _used_ to things like that.

“You should,” she says.

“I spent months lying to you, too.”

“Well. Yes. But…” 

“Did you love me?”

“Yes.”

“Do you still?”

“Jaime, of course I do, but…”

“No one has ever loved me like that. Not like you did.” She’s stunned into silence, horrified by his openness, because she feels the same way but would never, ever speak it aloud. “I always wanted it. I tried a thousand apps, dating services, even hired a matchmaker. It never worked. I was too much, or not enough. There was always something wrong. Then I met you, and it was as if you were the exact thing I had been looking for, for all that time. I’d be a fool to let you go.”

“Jaime, you should think about it,” she says quietly. “Give me an answer when you’re more sober.”

“You can wait if you want, but it won’t change anything,” Jaime answers, and then he tugs his arm back towards his chest, bringing her hand with it, smiling up at her, loopy but still _Jaime_ , still him. She knows exactly what he wants, but he’s still too high. She leans in and kisses him on the forehead, instead.

“Give me your answer tomorrow,” she says. When she pulls back to look at him, Jaime looks uncharacteristically serious.

“I will,” he promises. Solemn, but the solemnity doesn’t last long. His expression breaks open into a grin. His eyes light up with it. 

She suddenly has no doubt at all what his answer is going to be.


End file.
